The use of paint masking members in the painting of automobile body parts is well known. These masking members are applied onto an automobile body part, such as a bumper, which is to be painted and serve to keep a desired portion of said body part free of paint. Due to the fact that in painting automobile body parts the paint is usually applied by spray painting or dipping, and the painted part is then exposed to rather high tempertaures in order to bake on the paint it is necessary that there be a paint tight seal between the edges of the masking member and the substrate onto which it is applied, and that the masking member be able to withstand the high baking temperatures.
The conventional masking members are fabricated from paper, tape such as adhesive tapes, metals such as aluminum, and fiberglass. Each of these conventional masking members has certain drawbacks and disadvantages associated therewith. Thus, for example, the tape and paper masking members are generally not reusable and require a great deal of time and effort to apply correctly onto the article to be painted. The masking members fabricated from metals and fiberglass, while lending themselves to reuse, suffer from the disadvantages of being rigid and thus tending to break, having a thermal expansion which is often quite different from that of the part being painted. This difference in coefficient of thermal expansion results in a space being formed between the edges of the masking member and the substrate part, thereby allowing paint to creep into said space. Furthermore, these conventional fiberglass and metal masking members also require a geart deal of time and effort to apply correctly onto the part to be painted.
There thus exists a need for a masking member which is reusable, is readily and easily applied onto the substrate to be painted, and has a coefficient of thermal expansion which is generally similar to that of the substrate to be painted, particularly to that of plastic automobile body parts such as plastic bumpers. It is an object of the instant invention to provide such as masking member.